Bloodlines
by Mind Jack
Summary: A side story to Born to Be Wilde. Lucy Sang wasn't always a villainess and a thief. She used to be an ordinary, highly immature artist with a rebellious streak. But every evildoer has a story, and Lucy found out the hard way that lies, betrayal, and murder will usually lead to more lies, betrayal, and murder. She's gonna have a lot more fun with her half.
1. Bad Blood

**Chapter 1: Bad Blood**

_The Meadowlands_

_Sang Household_

_6: 28 PM_

Lucy Sang couldn't help but feel that her ancient ancestors had it right with the whole "hiding in a dark cave" lifestyle. Her hiding spot was nice and dark, enough that she could practically hear the entire house through the vents, it was stocked with plenty of food, and, most importantly, she was safe from-

The attic door crashed open, flooding the attic with light from below. "Lucy! I know you're in here somewhere. You may as well come out."

…Damn. "I don't want to come out. I have Bug Burgas back here."

Lucy could hear her older sister gritting her teeth as she moved the large painting she was hiding behind. "Come on, you know Father will be furious if we don't get you ready before your exhibit tonight."

"But if I look like a starving artist, they might give me more money!"

The scowl on Lana's perfectly made-up face told Lucy she wouldn't be getting away with that excuse. Lana's own midnight-blue suit jacket and skirt were immaculate, despite the fact she'd been wearing it since morning. With a roll of her eyes, she allowed herself to be practically dragged back down the attic ladder.

"Father will be coming to the gallery later tonight to inspect your turnout and help with networking. I will _not _have him seeing you in that slovenly outfit." She wrinkled her nose at Lucy's messy gray fur, ratty jeans, and old blue T-shirt.

"Hey! My Bat Penetar shirt is awesome!"

Lana ignored Lucy's protests as she pulled her down the hall to the dressing room and plopped her onto a stool in front of the mirror. Lucy made sure to fidget and struggle as much as she could while Lana tried in vain to wrestle a brush through her dyed-black hair. "Hold still, or I'll shave your head!"

"I will not be threatened!"

"If you hold still, and let me do your hair and makeup, I'll let you wear that black vinyl catsuit you like so much."

"...But I will be bribed. Carry on."

After about twenty more minutes, Lana finally managed to get Lucy's hair brushed flat and pinned flat down the back of her neck with hairspray. She'd thankfully opted for subtlety with the makeup, using only a coat of black eyeshadow above Lucy's forest green eyes. The black "catsuit" was actually Lucy's favorite suit to wear while painting. The smooth, black material was easy to scrub paint off of, hard to stain, and comfortable.

Lucy was going to mumble under her breath that people should be looking at the paintings, not her, but was cut off by the ringing of a phone.

Lana's cell phone.

Her blood ran cold.

Lana picked up the phone. "Hello, Father." Lucy tried to gesture frantically for her to tell their father she'd already left. "Yes, she's right here." Lucy's entire body sagged in disappointment.

She accepted the cell phone from her sister, putting it on speakerphone. "Hi, Daddy."

"_Hello, Lucy," _greeted the gravelly, cold tone of Lucien Sang. "_I trust you're following my instructions and not giving Lana a hard time."_

"O-of course! Why do you ask?"

"_Because I'm watching my security feed of the hallway, and I saw her dragging you down from the attic again."_

Lucy turned away from the hall security camera, trying to hide her wince. "Yes, Daddy. I was uh… preparing myself mentally for the exhibit."

"_Really?" _Her father hummed in a tone that suggested he did not believe her in the slightest. "_Well that's good. I hope I don't need to remind you what happens if this little lark of yours doesn't go well."_

She bit her lower lip. "Yes, Daddy."

"_I won't lie to you, Lucy. I have extreme doubts about letting you do this. If necessary, I will put you on the right track by force, like Lana. But you seem to have a following, which might make this career choice quite lucrative for you, so I am willing to allow you to see where it goes." _He paused for a moment, audibly sighing through his nose. "_Which brings me to an unfortunate piece of news."_

"Uh… okay. What is it?"

There was another moment of hesitation from him_. "I am afraid that there has been an emergency meeting called by the board of directors. I am unable to oversee the event tonight, as I said I would. Lana and Leo will be going along instead."_

Knowing she'd get in trouble if she cheered out loud, Lucy kept it internal.

"_Remember, Lana is still in charge. I won't have you and your brother making fools of yourselves in public. If I hear from Lana that anything happened…"_

Lucy shuddered. "Yeah. I'll make sure to, uh… be on my best behavior."

"_Excellent. Just remember that there is always a position open at St. Justine's. You might even look good in a military school uniform."_

With that, he hung up abruptly, leaving Lucy standing dumbly while Lana pried the phone from her claws. "That sounded like it went well. No time to dwell on it. Let's get you out of those ratty clothes and into something more fitting."

Lana carefully extracted Lucy from her t-shirt without messing up her hair and makeup. After that, it was fairly easy to get into her outfit for the gallery: a shiny black jumpsuit that was technically made to keep paint out of Lucy's fur, but had been modified by Lana to be more "fashionable" by cutting a diamond-shaped hole just below her collarbone, cutting off the back, and adding a brass clasp collar. Lucy actually liked the slightly racy changes to it. It was less functional, but made for a great alternative to the other weird, alien outfits Lana tried to get her to wear.

Finally, she was piled into the back of the family limo. Lana got into the driver's seat, leaving her alone. "Yet another sign that she's a tool…" Lucy muttered under her breath.

Her phone buzzed. She picked it up to see a new text. _Good luck at the exhibit tonight, Lucy! It's gonna go great! I just know it! -M_

Lucy smiled. Leave it to Martina to try and cheer her up at the very last possible second. _On the way there now. Scared to death. R u gonna be there? -L_

_Of course, dear! I wouldn't dream of missing your grandest moment! -M_

_U know u can drop the theatrics in text, rite? -L_

_I know nothing of the sort. ;) -M_

Lucy chuckled, putting her phone away just in time to see that they had pulled over on the side of the road. "Uh, Lana, why are we stopping?"

The partition between the two of them slowly rolled down. Lana did not look at her when she spoke. "Before we arrive, I wanted to impress the importance of this event on you."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Yeah yeah, I know, if anything goes wrong, I'm off to St. Justine's." Though the thought may have been terrifying, it had started to become annoying when she was threatened with it every day for a month.

"That isn't what I mean." Lana, for the first time, turned to look at her. "I know about the underage drinking, the shoplifting, and the fighting."

The younger bat averted her gaze. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Listen to me, you little brat!" Lana snapped. "I'm not trying to threaten you with that ridiculous school. There are going to be important people at this exhibit. Father has put the word out to a few of his high-class contacts about this exhibit for you. So if anything goes wrong, it will reflect badly on our family as a whole. And, since I'm in charge of you, it reflects especially badly on me. I need you to be on your best behavior. Promise me."

Lucy was shocked to say the least. Lana had _never _talked to her that frankly and seriously. "I guess… I promise."

Lana's eyes searched her face. Lucy did her best to look like the pinnacle of innocence. Finally, she nodded and turned back without another word, putting the divide back up.

The rest of the drive was uncomfortably uneventful. Martina didn't message again, so Lucy found herself idly twiddling her thumb claws, letting the nervous knots in her gut fester. She pulled her lucky pocket knife out. She'd sewn a little slot for it into the inside of the right leg of her favorite painting jumpsuit, where Lana wouldn't look for it. The name Lionel was carved into the wooden handle. Lionel had been her grandfather. The knife was all she had left of him.

* * *

_The Rainforest District_

_Nutti Gallery _

_8: 00 PM_

At last, they pulled up in front of the gallery.

Nutti Gallery was the biggest contributor to up-and-coming artists in Zootopia. It was in the understory of the Rainforest District, clear across town from where the Sang family lived in the Meadowlands.

The street outside the tall, marble-and-glass building was packed. Her father really had gone all-out with marketing the exhibit. Since the high-class visitors were likely inside, the street was filled with hipsters, in hipster clothes, doing… hipster things. Lucy hated hipsters.

Lana opened the passenger door. "Come on. Out with you."

Lucy gulped as she stepped out onto the red carpet leading into the gallery. The flash of the cameras and the noise of the crowd forced her to choose between shielding her eyes or her ears.

The inside was still crowded, but it at least wasn't as noisy. The rodents filling the gallery were mostly chatting quietly among themselves, or looking at some of the other exhibits on display.

That quiet noise level was quickly rectified by someone loudly yelling, "Darling!"

Lucy quickly found herself being tackle-hugged by a missile made of light brown fur.

Martina was a mouse around Lucy's age and around half her height. She wore a black denim vest over a white shirt and a pink skirt. Her short brown hair was dyed almost completely pink as well. She pecked Lucy on each cheek. "I'm so happy to finally see you on your big night!" she gushed. "It's so exciting!"

Behind her, another bat slowly strolled up. Leo Sang was pretty much the picture in the dictionary next to the word "nerd." He was a little overweight, wearing thick glasses, tan slacks, and a white shirt with suspenders. He even wore shoes, brown loafers that were out of fashion even to Lucy. He greeted her with a smile and a hug. "Great to see you again, Luce."

She squeezed him tight, actually lifting him off his feet a little and grinning at his surprised squeak. He indignantly brushed off the wrinkles on his shirt once she set him down. "Hey! I took all day ironing this…"

Lucy and Martina shared a laugh. "I haven't seen you in months. Can you blame me? How's your project going, anyway?"

He perked up immediately. "The solar array? It's going really well. Almost ready for the scholarship showing."

While Leo was Lucy's brother, and Martina had been her friend since childhood, they were also competitors. The Stagford University Scholarship was Lucy's backup plan in case her art career didn't take off right away. Leo wanted access to the university's labs to help further his research. Martina, who'd always had a flair for acting, hoped that the prestigious university's drama program would be her gate to bigger and better things. But only one of them could have it.

A light bulb went off in Lucy's head. "Speaking of which, want to see my exhibit?"

They both nodded eagerly. Lucy led them back through the rows of walls holding various paintings, towards the front of the exhibit. "These are mine!" she proclaimed proudly.

There were three paintings, all in a row. On the far left was an image of Tundratown at night, with various shadowy figures standing around in the snowy streets. In the middle was Savannah Central, with all the buildings on fire for some reason or another. Lucy honestly wasn't sure why she'd painted it that way, but it looked cool.

The third one was… special. At least, it was special to Lucy.

It depicted Lucy's small attic hideout, lit only by the light of a full moon through the skylight. The third picture, even more than either of the others, was painted with loving detail. Everything, from the moonlight crossing individual bits of dust in the air, to the grain of the wooden floorboards, to the subtle shine of the glass skylight was shown with crystal clarity.

"_Tres magnifique _darling!" Martina gushed. "You have outdone yourself!"

"Yeah, really pretty," Leo agreed, clearly having no actual idea. He looked fidgety and nervous. Lucy gave him a worried frown.

She tapped him on the shoulder, causing him to jump. "Hey, are you ok?"

He looked back and forth, as if worried he was going to be ambushed. "I'm fine," he tried to assure, in an unusually high-pitched voice.

Lucy wrapped a wing around him. "Getting freaked out by the crowd?"

He hesitated, but nodded.

She patted his back comfortingly. "No worries. Maybe we can talk Lana into letting you leave early."

"As anyone with any sense would wish to do, I'm sure."

Lucy closed her eyes, sighing through her nose at the voice from behind her. "Hello, Spaz."

The chipmunk scowled at her purposeful mispronunciation. "It's pronounced "Spots."

"It's like, foreign, or something," said his flunky, a burly female gopher in a T-shirt that legitimately said 'I heart Spaz,' not with a heart symbol, but with the actual word heart.

Spaz was somewhere between being a hipster and just being a lazy bum. His outfit being completely made of tattered denim made him look homeless, even if he did make a tidy profit off his work. He _smelled _homeless too. But none of the other patrons around him had the guts to say anything. He had a reputation for getting into fights in the rare event that someone even slightly insulted him.

A nasty little idea reared its head in Lucy's mind. It was one that made her grin.

Lucy tilted her head to one side. "Oh? I always thought you named yourself after how spastic those paintings of soda cans made you look."

Spaz favored her with a cold glare. "They were soup cans," he growled through grinding teeth.

"Really? Wow. Andy Narwhal really is a better painter then you. At least his cans don't look like they're already recycled."

Spaz did exactly what Lucy hoped he would do; tackled her to the ground and started punching her.

Lucy kicked him off. As she stood, she stealthily pulled the pocket knife from its hiding place. She was absolutely not afraid to cut this jackass, especially since he'd given her the excuse of self-defense.

Before they could pounce on each other again, Martina stepped between them. "Now now, darlings! No need to fight. We're in public. Surely we can all be civil?"

Spaz tossed his head, sticking his nose in the air. "Fine. I don't want to be in this trash heap anyway. Come on, Courtney."

As the two rodents left the gallery, Martina gave Lucy a very very stern look. "What were you _thinking!? _You could've destroyed your career!"

Lucy folded her wings and gave a guilty pout. "Sorry… The Spaz gets on my nerves…"

Martina snatched the knife from her. "I'll take that. If Lana catches you with your hair in a mess like that, a knife won't protect you. Come on! Into the bathroom. I have a brush in my purse."

Though it pained her, Lucy spent the rest of the event parked next to her paintings with Martina and Leo.

It was mostly quiet for a couple of hours, until they were approached by a twitchy kangaroo rat in a navy blue sweater and black jeans. "Excuse ME!" His entire face twitched as he shouted the last word. "Would you be the ARTIST of these pieces?"

"Yup. These are mine," Lucy replied, not particularly phased. He certainly wasn't the worst weirdo she'd seen in town.

He looked at the price tags below each painting. "Only a hundred BUCKS each!?" He turned back to look at her. "I'll give you a THOUSAND each!"

Lucy blinked. "Uhhhh… you do realize I'm a relative unknown with absolutely zero prestige, righ-" Martina violently pinched Lucy to shut her up.

"I'm AWARE!" The kangaroo rat replied. "I just like their LOOKS and have MONEY to swing around. My name's RATTOIS! I'm a COLLECTOR!"

Lucy tried to do the math of how much that would make her in her head. Leo, obviously seeing this, beat her to it. "With the 20% gallery fee, that'd make you twenty-four hundred dollars. That's a pretty good haul for a starting artist."

Rattois pulled out a wad of hundred dollar bills and waggled them enticingly.

Lucy took the money from him and counted it. Three grand. Not just three grand, but three grand she'd earned herself. "Sir, you have a deal."

"GREAT! I'll have my ASSISTANTS come in to pick them up NOW!"

Lucy felt a pang of emotion she couldn't identify as a pair of burly moles carted her paintings off to parts unknown. But they went away as a big grin crossed her face, and she held the money up triumphantly. "Looks like dinner's on me tonight!"

The look on Lana's face when Lucy walked up with several thousand dollars, saying she was ready to leave, was absolutely priceless. Sadly, she recovered quickly. "Alright. I suppose you've done… well. Where would you like to go?"

"Oooh!" Martina exclaimed. "I know the owner of a great restaurant that's not too far from here. He owes me a favor. I can get us seats!"

* * *

_Savannah Central _

_A Great Restaurant _

_9: 13 PM_

Indeed she had. The restaurant was clearly upscale, with red velvet curtains and tablecloths, a full classical string band, and waiters that weren't penguins, but looked like them. Lana politely declined to go, muttering under her breath about how a full meal with Lucy was a far worse torture than she ever deserved.

Once they got seated, Martina cleared her throat. "Now that I've got you both here, there's something I've been meaning to discuss with you."

Leo looked at her with concern. "What's wrong, Marty?"

Martina laced her fingers under her chin, as if she was trying hard to word her next statement right. "Well… now that Lucy has been at least recognized by the art world, and your research has begun to gain traction, Leo, I was hoping to ask if you two might be willing to… drop out of the race for the scholarship."

Lucy was taken aback. Leo stammered for a few minutes before Lucy cut him off. "Are you crazy? We've been working for this thing forever."

"Now just hear me out!" Martina begged. "You two are already starting to take off. I'm still stuck on the ground! I don't have the resources to fall back on that you two do."

That was true. Martina was rather poor compared to either of them. All of her connections, all of her accomplishments, she'd earned them one by one.

"I guess I don't really NEED to use the university labs…" Leo said doubtfully.

Lucy shook her head. "That may be true for Leo, but Dad'll make me head to college no matter what I do. If I don't get this, he'll pay for it himself. Then I'll be in debt to him. I refuse to let that happen without a fight."

Martina opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, and then finally closed it with a scowl. There really wasn't much to be said.

The trio ate in silence for the next few minutes, no words spoken between them in all that time. Lucy was glad to be able to enjoy her meal in peace, but a part of her couldn't help thinking back over Martina's insistence about dropping that scholarship - It seemed unlike her. Usually, Martina was all for standing behind whatever decisions Lucy made. Something about this one seemed different, though. Almost disconcerting.

Whatever the case, Lucy was more than happy to drown her thoughts with flavor, forking down her meal one bite at a time. Ignorance was bliss.

Eventually, a newcomer to the restaurant caught Lucy's attention. Her eyes settled on a portly star-nosed mole in a gray three-piece suit as he entered the lobby and paced right past the reception desk. He appeared to be rather old, hobbling along on a small cane clutched within his thick paws. Overall, he looked a cross between an aristocrat and a funeral director, and soon enough, he was positioned right beside their table.

"Oh, Mr. Graves." Martina greeted. "It's nice to see you. We appreciate the hospitality!"

The mole nodded his head politely. "It's my pleasure. Just stopping by to see how things are running." He said with a sigh, scanning over the room. "The restaurant business can be a very time consuming one. Ah, but don't mind me. How's your aunt holding up?"

"She's just invested in usual business. Whatever you can think of."

Mr. Graves nodded again, the tendrils ringed around his nostrils quivering with irritation. "I see, I see… Good. Well, I suppose I'll be off. Keep an eye on her for me, will you? She's a wily one."

At that, the star-nosed mole excused himself, leaving behind the table and approaching the bar. Lucy was tempted to ask Martina more about that peculiar old mammal, but Leo beat her to it with a question of his own about some technical mumbo jumbo relating to his solar array that she couldn't have bothered listening to even if she understood half of what he was saying. She zoned out, picking at her food and pondering more over that scholarship that Martina had mentioned.

As the night dragged on, poor Leo got continually more inebriated with each passing minute, thanks to his consistent drinking, and eventually, Martina offered to take him home. She helped guide him back outside after the check was paid, mumbling about photovoltaics all the while, thus leaving Lucy to herself.

The young bat sighed, wishing that she had someone to talk to. She sat by herself for a few minutes, but quickly noticed that old mole, Mr. Graves, looking at her. He didn't seem to be staring. Just looking at her with polite interest. Still feeling unnerved, Lucy quickly vacated the restaurant, so eager to leave that she forgot all about the tip.

* * *

_10: 23 PM_

Stepping outside into the chilly night winds, the bat felt a shiver settle down her spine. It was almost soothing. It was moments like these where she could truly relax. Despite longing for someone to talk to earlier, Lucy figured that now was the time to be alone with her thoughts, for she had much to think about.

Flapping up and taking to the air, Lucy ascended to the roof of the restaurant, touching down and staring out over the nighttime skyline of Savannah Central. The bright city lights beamed high into the sky, and even at this hour, mammals of all shapes and sizes meandered throughout the surrounding streets. It made her think of the mysterious Nocturnal District, with its underground neighborhoods. She wondered what it would be like to live in a world of perpetual darkness. A slight laugh reached her lips. _If I really want to know, all I need to do is ask my family._

Exhaling softly, Lucy slumped against the rim of the roof and tilted her head back, staring up at the sky above. The moon beamed bright across the darkness, and even farther away, stars glittered like diamonds sprinkled throughout the cosmos. She reached out to them with one wing, as though trying to grab a handful of dust. Lucy had always liked staring up at the stars. Most of her vampire bat kin lived down in the Nocturnal District, where the sun never shined, so being one of the few families living on the surface, she was always grateful to be able to appreciate such natural beauty. Not only that, but there was just something so inexplicably inspiring about the night sky, with all its heavenly bodies. Maybe it just reminded Lucy that there was a universe out there so much bigger than whatever petty squabbling her family dragged her into. Or maybe it was just pretty to look at. Whatever the case, it was a sight that never failed to calm her down.

Lucy dropped her wing back down to her side, where her claws tapped slowly against the stone roof of the building below her. Perhaps life could have been better, but it definitely could have been worse. She'd heard rumors that most of the vampire bats below the surface lived in not-so great conditions, and weren't very well liked by other mammals due to their unique predatory needs that no fish or bug could satisfy. Then again, it wasn't like those few families on the surface were much better off - Always getting threats and being discriminated against. For as overbearing as her father was, Lucy couldn't deny that he did a good job of protecting his family, even if he cared for some of them more than others.

As the thought of her father passed through her mind once more, Lucy's peaceful mood was left soured. She figured that trying to pick out the constellations would only result in her connecting the dots to an image of her father's glaring face, so instead, she refocused her attention to another thing that never failed to make her feel better: Drawing. She reached into her purse and pulled out a raggedy old sketchbook. It wasn't much, but it was one of her most prized possessions, always on her for whenever inspiration struck.

She set the cardboard backpiece down on her lap, and began to reconstruct the faces of Leo and Martina, sitting across from her during their time in the restaurant. She sketched out the details of their fur, the emotion behind their smiles, and all the little things scattered throughout the foreground and background. When she was finished, she smiled down at it, grateful to be able to have friends such as these.

Lucy spent the next ten minutes to herself on that roof, adding details to her drawing, and pondering over all the things she was thankful for in life, before an electronic buzz pierced the silence, effectively derailing her train of thought. She glanced over to her purse, which was trembling from within every few seconds as the buzzing noise rang out. Reaching inside, the bat retracted her mobile device before holding it up. Martina. That was odd. Why was she calling so soon after she'd left?

"Hello?" She started softly.

"Lucy! Oh, Lucy, thank goodness you picked up!" Martina's voice cried out, fear lacing her words.

"What is it?" The bat asked. "Is something wrong?"

"Yes! It's horrible! Leo's place - You need to get here right now! I-It's Leo!"

Lucy perked up, gasping slightly. She felt her heart tremble with apprehension, yet her fear was quickly overshadowed by her worry. Something was wrong with Leo, and Martina needed her help.

"I'm on my way."

* * *

_Sunset Apartments_

_11: 04 PM_

Lucy noticed something strange about the apartment building on Fleet Street almost as soon as it came into view. It took her a moment to figure out what bugged her about it; It was early evening, when nocturnal mammals would be waking up, and diurnal mammals would still be eating dinner. No one should be asleep.

But there were no lights on in the building.

Lucy approached slowly. She pushed a button on the box outside the front door, hoping to be buzzed in. There was no sound. _Is the power out? What the heck is going on…?_

Flying up, she found Leo's window to be shut and locked, the window shuddered so that she couldn't see in. She tried to bang on the door to get Martina's attention, but no one answered. Fortunately, the front door was unlocked.

Lucy took the stairs up to the third floor, where Leo's apartment was. She didn't see anyone on her way up, but she did hear several other mammals muttering angrily about the power outage.

She reached Leo's door, and found it broken nearly off of its hinges. She immediately reached for her knife, cursing herself when she realized that Martina still had it.

Lucy barged inside, and immediately stopped, her breath hitching in her throat.

Lying on the beige, blood-stained carpet, was Leo.

He looked much smaller than Lucy remembered him. Lucy didn't even think to call for Martina. She just collapsed to her knees, trying to shake him awake. She barely heard her own voice as she yelled for him to stay awake, if he could hear her. That's when she saw what was sticking out of his chest.

Lucy's lucky knife.

"Yes! She's still here! I can hear her outside! Please, hurry!"

Lucy didn't have time to register Martina's voice. The police must have arrived just after she walked into the building. She hadn't even noticed them until a burly rat tackled her from behind.

Lucy struggled on the ground, unsure what was going on. Her attempts at asking were muffled by the carpet. She felt a sharp prick in her side as the officer holding her down fired his tranq pistol into her. The last thing Lucy saw before everything went black was her sketchbook falling out of her purse. The sketch she'd made of herself and her small group of friends being slowly soaked through with Leo's blood.

* * *

_**Thank you to my co-authors, Upplet and Berserker88. A long time ago, I intended to write an origin story for Lucy, one of the villains from my other story with Berserker88, Born to Be Wilde. That project fell by the wayside for a long time, until Upplet urged us to pick it back up again. He was so eager that we decided to bring him on as a co-author. In fact, he wrote much of the roof scene. **_


	2. The Red Mile

_**Thank you to everyone who has followed and faved this story, and I'm very sorry for the long wait. I couldn't think of a more appropriate time to update on Lucy's story than good ol' Hallows Eve. I'll have a few updates at the bottom author's note, but for now, on with the show!**_

* * *

**Chapter 2: The Red Mile**

_Sahara Square_

_11: 38 AM_

The air was blistering hot above the desert sands. It was especially bad in the rodent-sized bus as it drove down the scorching streets.

Lucy Sang was an absolute mess, and not just physically. In addition to her unkempt headfur, sweat-stained orange jumpsuit, and visible swelling around one of her eyes that suspiciously resembled a fist, her posture was hunched, her ears hung low, and the fur around her eyes was matted with tears. A muzzle covered the lower half of her face, and steel chain manacles around her ankles and wingtips jangled with every bump the bus hit.

She was snapped out of her stupor when the bus hissed to a stop. She glanced out the window, and managed to glimpse a sign that read _Southeast Zootopia Small Mammal Penitentiary. _

There was a loud clanging as a rat in a ZPD uniform banged her nightstick on the wall of the bus. "Listen up ladies! All of you are gonna get off the bus in two single-file lines! First the left, then the right!"

She kept talking, but Lucy tuned her out. She was still too busy feeling sorry for herself. _How did I end up here? _She'd been so close to finally being out on her own! Everything had been going so well!

How had things gone so wrong?

* * *

_The Meadowlands_

_Zootopia Police Department - Precinct 8_

_1: 07 AM_

After being tased and violently knocked unconscious, Lucy had woken up sitting in a chair in a dingy, dimly-lit interrogation room. The chair was clearly sized for a regular mammal, so her cuffs were chained through a ring on the front of the chair instead of the table.

Across from her, in a chair that had been pulled around from the other side of the table, was a female rat in a blue-collared shirt, brown jacket, and jeans. On a chain around her neck was a police badge. "Hello, Miss Sang," the rat greeted. "Glad to see you're awake. I'm Detective Rodentski."

"Happy to meet you," Lucy replied sarcastically. "Where am I? What happened?"

"Hm. Some memory loss. Not unexpected," said Rodentski. "You're in the Precinct 8 Police Station, currently under arrest for the murder of Leo Sang."

The world dropped out from under Lucy.

Memories of what happened at Leo's apartment started to flood back to her. The room started to tilt and spin. "No…" she murmured.

The detective rolled her eyes. "There's no need for crocodile tears, Miss Sang. We have you dead to rights. Motive, opportunity, plenty of evidence."

It only then hit Lucy exactly what the detective was saying. "W-wait, WHAT!?" she exclaimed. "H-he was dead when I got there! That's impossible!"

She could tell that Rodentski was visibly resisting another eye roll, probably followed by a "That's what they all say."

Her resistance was futile. "That's what they all say, Miss Sang. We have your knife as the murder weapon, your fur on the victim's body, and at least two witness accounts putting you at the scene at the time of the murder. I suggest you confess now and save us all a lot of trouble."

"Witnesses? What witnesses?" Now Lucy went straight from sad to furious. "They're fucking liars! I loved Leo! I'd never hurt him! I wasn't even anywhere nearby until Martina called me telling me to come over for an emergency! My fur was on Leo because I tried to revive him!"

"We found no record of such a call on your phone," Rodentski shot back. "In addition to Miss Mouseau's testimony of you attacking her and your brother over an argument about a scholarship the three of you were chasing, we have a neighbor who overheard the argument itself, as well as the struggle."

Lucy was too stunned to respond, which wasn't helping her case. _That's impossible. There's no way they couldn't have found that call. And that neighbor sounds far too convenient. Could it be? Was...this more than just a stroke of bad luck?_

Overwhelmed, Lucy put her head in her hands and slumped onto the table, shuddering. Which also wasn't helping her case.

To her credit, Rodentski at least had the courtesy to give her a moment before she asked again. "Are you going to confess, Miss Sang? I need to know before we can move on."

Lucy grit her teeth. She didn't care what they had or what they said; she wasn't going to confess to a lie. _"No,"_ she said firmly.

Rodentski sighed and shook her head. "Suit yourself. You get one phone call."

Lucy didn't know who else to call but her father. Even though she hated him, she clung to the payphone receiver like a life preserver as she waited for him to pick up.

After an eternity, he finally did. "Hello? Who is this? I'm in the middle of a very important meeting."

Lucy breathed a sigh of relief. "Dad! It's me, Lucy! Listen, there's been an emergency!"

There was complete silence from the other end of the phone, and for a second, she thought he might have hung up on her. Then she heard a mumbled apology for leaving whatever meeting he was in and stepping outside. Finally, she started to get her hopes up a little.

Those hopes were quickly, and very firmly dashed. "Why did you call me?" His tone was cold.

Lucy quickly explained the situation as she understood it.

Again, silence. Lucy assumed he was simply stunned at the news that his son was dead. "You have… the unmitigated GALL to call me, claiming innocence after MURDERING MY SON!" he roared. "The police have already told me what you did. You'll get no help from me."

Now it was her turn to be silent. At first, she was shocked to hear that her father not only knew about this already, but had immediately blamed her for it. But then she realized that she wasn't really shocked at all by this, and it quickly turned into bitter anger. "Are you serious?" she hissed. "The cops throw a few pieces of circumstantial evidence at you, and that's all it takes for you to turn on me?!"

He let out a snort. "Circumstantial? Do you expect me to believe this sort of thing is beyond you? You've always been an ungrateful brat, _and_ with a history of violence to boot! It doesn't surprise me in the least that you would finally sink so low as to turn on your own family!"

Getting into a shouting match was not going to help Lucy right now.

She did anyway. "You...you old BASTARD! How dare you think that I could ever do this to Leo! It doesn't surprise _me_ in the least that you're once again throwing me under the bus for the sake of your precious prodigies! Why should I expect you to care about me _now_ when you never have before?!"

It would've been better had he continued yelling back. But even to the end, he refused to give her what she wanted. "You're a disgrace to the family name, Lucele. Don't call me again."

He hung up.

Lucy was shell-shocked as she followed the guard back to the interrogation room.

* * *

_Meadowlands Public Courthouse_

_10: 31 AM_

She still refused to sign the confession. But, in the end, it didn't matter. The jury had the same reaction as everyone else. Lucy barely listened as the prosecutor read off the various evidence against her. Her eyes were on her father and Lana in the gallery. Their stares were past icy. They were cold enough to chill her soul. The glare she sent them back was hot enough to melt it, though.

Next to them, Lillian looked like she just wanted to cry. She was too young to understand any of this. Anytime she started to let out a sob, Lana irritably shushed her.

Lucy still struggled to understand exactly what happened, but when Martina took the stand, something clicked in her head. "You BITCH!" she yelled as she stood, only to be instantly forced back down by a nearby bailiff.

Martina flinched away from the stand, in highly exaggerated fashion, and began to cry. "I-I don't think I can do this. I'm scared..."

"I'll give you something to be scared about, you lying, backstabbing-!" She was forced down again, this time with a stern reprimand and threat to be held in contempt of court.

Martina was still crying, hunched over with her head in her paws. Probably to hide the smirk on her face. _How can nobody else see how phoned in this is?!_

Naturally, it took very little actual convincing to get her to sing like a bird.

Lucy's jaw hung wide open as she heard what Martina had to say.

"W-we had just gotten home, my darling Leo and I. Earlier in the evening, I had tried to get Lucy and Leo to drop out of the scholarship competition, and while both refused, I of course understood. But Lucy came in and she... she tried to intimidate us into dropping out! I had no idea what had gotten into her! She was waving that knife around like she was insane, and was even crying! Leo tried to take the knife away from her, but she... she..." She broke down into more fake sobs.

"You guys can't seriously believe this!" Lucy argued. "Martina took my knife away from me in the art gallery! Surely there were some kind of cameras in there that saw it?"

"The cameras at the gallery were disabled the night of the event," the prosecutor responded smugly. "As were the ones near the apartment building where the murder occurred. Both by something resembling your knife."

Lucy fell down into her seat, stunned.

_She planned this. She planned all of it. She thought of every detail. And all over a stupid scholarship! _

It was so ridiculous that she could almost laugh, if she didn't instead want to curl up into a little ball and cry her eyes out. But she refused to give this mammal she had once called a friend that kind of satisfaction. So all Lucy could manage was to glare bitterly at the traitorous mouse up until she finally left the stand.

After that, she turned her ire on everyone else. Her family that had abandoned her, the detective who had interrogated her, the prosecutor who had humiliated her, the judge, the bailiff, the jury, and every other mammal in this room. They had all played a part in this joke of a criminal justice system. Lucy hated them all.

The inevitable guilty verdict didn't help either.

Lucy had been running mostly on raw anger for most of the trial. But when that gavel slammed, and the verdict was announced, her shoulders slumped, and her ears pinned back against her head. As she was led away, she struggled to describe the feeling in her heart. It was more than sadness, and more than despair. As she was shoved onto the prison bus, the word came to her.

Lucy Sang felt dead.

While she had barely paid attention to most of the lies being spewed about her, she _did_ know where she was heading: the _Southeast Zootopia Small Mammal Penitentiary, _as the words on the side of the bus read_._ As if she was any more dangerous than the mouse now running free, having literally gotten away with murder. If Lucy knew this was how it was all going to turn out, then Martina could have the damn scholarship. That didn't matter to her anymore. Nothing did. Nothing at all.

If there was any bright side to this, it was that she didn't care who saw her cry anymore. So she cried.

* * *

_Sahara Square_

_Southeast Zootopia Small Mammal Penitentiary_

_11: 39 AM_

She was stirred from her thoughts by a baton to the side of the head, and dragged physically out of her seat by the loud rat from before. "Get up, Sang! No lagging behind!"

The bat wiped the remaining tears from her eyes and grumbled something that was quite clear to her own ears, but thankfully outside of the guard's hearing range. She was led through the prison gates with her supposed "peers", most of whom looked like they could rip her apart in seconds if she so much as stepped on their toes. _Oh yeah, these are my mammals alright._

Thankfully, all the shed tears and the resignation to her fate had helped her sense of humor come back. She was going to need it.

Bleak grey walls and bars surrounded the procession on each side, from which many glowering eyes peered at them, no doubt seeing fresh meat enter their den. Unfortunately for her, Lucy was pretty scrawny even for a small mammal prison. She subconsciously found herself standing up straighter and trying to put on a brave face, as if the puffy eyes wouldn't instantly give away how terrified she was. It felt like an eternity before they finally left that hallway, but the worst was yet to come.

Next, they were each thrown into a cramped room and put against a wall to get their mugshots, just like on TV. Lucy wished she had paid more attention to crime dramas growing up, given that her life had just become one. She didn't even get the chance to come up with a unique expression before the camera flashed and she ended up with something between an angry scowl and just looking constipated.

Then she got her new orange clothes, and found out that she could be called something even more insulting than "murderer" or "psycho": 04232-016. Assholes.

Before she could change into those clothes, she was subjected to a very thorough and undignified strip-search. She was photographed several more times, likely so they had some kind of reference besides her face if she escaped.

When she felt as much like a low-class show chicken as possible, she was led to her cell. On the way, more of the prisoners laughed, jeered, made rude or violent comments, and just did what prisoners tended to do.

The cell itself wasn't absurdly tiny, at least, and it seemed fairly clean. The beds were all sized for medium-small mammals, around the size of a bunny's. A shape roughly two-and-a-half times Lucy's size lay snoring under the drab gray blankets on one of the beds. "Uh... Hi."

"Zzz... _snort!_ Huh! Wuzzat?" The female mongoose who had been sleeping in the bed sat up blearily. She had yellow-orange fur that would have matched her jumpsuit if it were just a couple of shades darker. She looked to be rather lanky and bony, with headfur as if she'd just rolled out of bed. Which, Lucy supposed, she had.

"Hi," she repeated. "It looks like I'm your new cellmate." The mongoose didn't _look_ as dangerous as the other prisoners she had met so far, and didn't seem terribly bright either, but Lucy remained on-guard.

The mongoose blinked a few times, as if struggling to comprehend her words. Then she yawned in her face, and Lucy's nose scrunched up as she got an early hint of the kind of food she could expect. "Hey there!" she said brightly. "Nice to finally get someone else in here. I was sick of having the space all to myself."

Lucy frowned. "You… _want_ a cellmate?"

"Hell yeah! You have any idea how boring it gets in here?" She chuckled. "Well, I suppose you don't just yet. But no worries, I'll help ya get settled in. The name's Ci-Ci!" She held out a dirty paw excitedly, as if she thought this was a formal ball. What Lucy wouldn't give for a formal ball right now.

She shook Ci-Ci's paw hesitantly. "Uh... Thanks. My name's Lucy."

"Great to meet ya, Luce! So, whatcha in for? Me, I'm in for drug dealing and armed robbery."

Lucy winced a little. "I'm... in for... murder," she admitted. She expected Ci-Ci to pull away, look at her with shock or disgust, and beat the living hell out of her. She flinched and closed her eyes in expectation of the coming beating.

Instead, she got a paw on her shoulder. "Ouch. That's a nasty one alright. Did you do it?"

Lucy opened her eyes, blinking in that same comprehension-challenged way. "Well... no, but you'd be the first to believe me."

"It's a good thing I do then." She patted her shoulder a few times. "No point lying about it now, right? If you say you didn't do it, then as far as I'm concerned, you didn't do it."

She said it so casually, but after everything Lucy had just been through, that simple reassurance meant more to her than anything.

"Whoa! Okay, I like ya, Luce, but not that much."

It took her a second to realize she was hugging her. Lucy quickly pulled away, partially out of embarrassment and partially because this girl didn't seem to be on speaking terms with personal hygiene. Maybe that was why she was tearing up too. "Sorry, just... thank you. That really means a lot."

A shrill bell went off, loud enough to hurt Lucy's sensitive ears.

"Ready for some grub? Literally!" The mongoose exclaimed. "That's what's on the menu today: Mashed grub! They haven't served grub in weeks! Aren't you excited?"

Lucy just sighed. 19 years old and she was in prison, forced to eat mashed grub with incarcerated thieves and murderers.

"Yeah... Super excited." The bat replied halfheartedly. If Ci-Ci noticed her lack of enthusiasm, she didn't show it.

* * *

_Mess Hall_

_12: 01 PM_

Instead, the mongoose just pulled her out of their cell, hoping to beat the lines before they grew too long. Being forced to get up and move around at least helped wake Lucy up. The drab gray walls of the prison's mess hall were about as exciting as concrete could get. The bat wished she could add some color to them, to redesign the prison to make it more appealing, and for a moment, she smiled. It didn't last, though as she quickly remembered where she was - Locked up and unable to do paint, like she used to. Lucy sighed, taking her tray of grayish mush before sitting down at an empty table with Ci-Ci. Most of the other inmates ate very quickly, knowing that lunchtime only lasted fifteen minutes, but Lucy couldn't bring herself to do anything more than poke at her food with her spoon, despite how hungry she was.

"What's wrong?" Ci-Ci asked. "You not gonna eat?"

"I... I can't." Lucy confessed, her voice shaking a bit. "I just... Miss being able to paint."

"Don't worry, everyone here has stuff they miss. But if it's any consolation, I know some girls that might be able to smuggle in some markers for ya."

The bat raised her gaze. "You'd do that for me? That's so sweet of you. How do you-"

She trailed off as she noticed Ci-Ci's terrified expression. A looming shadow passed over the table, and just as the bat was about to turn around and stare up at whatever had interrupted her conversation, she suddenly felt a strong force push against the back of her head, shoving her face-first into her own tray of disgusting prison slop.

"Look what we have here!" A feminine, yet surprisingly deep spoke out from behind her. "A little baby bat flown too far from home."

Lucy shifted her gaze against the pressure pushing down on the back of her head, causing the prison food to mush against her face like mud. She forced one of her eyes to glare up at whoever was driving her head into the table, and took in the sight of a heavy-set tasmanian devil. Her muscular body was coated in the same orange jumpsuit as every other inmate in the prison. The devil's jet-black fur was coarse and wiry, as though it hadn't gotten a good combing in several decades, and as her thick muzzle split into a smug grin, Lucy could count at least half-a-dozen cavities sprinkled throughout the devil's teeth.

"I saw the guards bring you in earlier." She remarked. "New meat, huh? Well, allow me to give you the welcome you deserve!"

The tasmanian devil added more pressure to her grip on the back of Lucy's head, forcing her face eye back down into the glop. Lucy tried squirming, but she was outclassed in terms of weight and strength. It was a futile effort. The devil simply let loose another slew of sadistic chortles beneath her breath before wiping Lucy's cheeks around in the mushy food like she was cleaning up a spill. A few other nearby prisoners laughed at Lucy's misfortunate. Nearby, she could hear Ci-Ci growling in defense.

"Leave her alone, Beth!" She cried out.

"Aw, you hear that, baby bat?" The tasmanian devil, apparently named Beth, crooned to Lucy as she slightly lifted her head out of the gunk. "You've got a friend!"

As soon as the words left her mouth, Beth slammed Lucy's head back into the tray. A brief pang of dizziness overcame her, causing her vision to blur like fog.

"Stop it!" Ci-Ci demanded, reaching over and grabbing the devil's forearm. "You're hurting her!"

Snarling, Beth easily shoved the mongoose away and onto the ground, her body hitting the concrete with a light thud.

"Don't act so surprised! All you fine ladies got the welcoming treatment!" Beth stated with a cruel laugh. "It's only fair that the baby bat gets hers too!"

With another thrust of her paw, Beth shoved Lucy's face back into the tray. She could feel the cold, slimy substance that was supposed to be her meal forcing its way up her nostrils, and into her mouth and eyes. She wanted to cry. Where were the guards? Weren't they supposed to keep stuff like this from happening? Lucy tried calling out for help, but as one of her eyes managed to briefly rise above the edge of the tray, her plea caught in her throat, for all that she saw were scared faces and shivering bodies. Beth was the biggest, strongest prisoner in the entire prison. No one could stand up to her. They all just sat back, watching in silence and letting Lucy suffer as Beth had her way with her. The tasmanian devil barked another round of harsh laughter.

"You enjoyin' that, baby bat? No? Then ya better get used to it!"

This was the final straw. Lucy felt her eyes begin to water. She wanted nothing more than to fly away and tuck herself into her own wings, where no one could bother her. Ever since the trial, she had been trying her best to hold down her bitterest feelings. Now, she was being hounded by the reality of it all. Never again would she be able to enjoy the simple pleasure of flying through the air without a care in the world. Her love of painting, which she had spent years developing as both a passion and a potential career, was now never to be used again. But, worst of all, Lucy knew that she'd never be able to see her brother again.

_My family..._The two words resonated through her mind like the ripples of a stone thrown against a pool of water.

Her beloved brother was dead. That much couldn't be changed, no matter how much she wanted it to. But her own living, breathing family... It was they who had all of the new chances that life could offer. Yet they had made their choice of casting Lucy out, ostracizing her in favor of mourning their lost relative. Her brother had died to an ungrateful family, and Lucy herself had been punished for it - Sent to a place she did not belong because of a thing she hadn't even done. They had never cared about her nor her brother.

But enough was enough. Lucy was tired of feeling sorry for herself, and she wasn't going to let this bully have her way with her any longer.

As Beth's paw smushed her face into the gunk once more, Lucy lashed out and chomped down on the first thing she saw. Unfortunately for Beth, that happened to be her thumb.

Her sharp fangs easily pierced through the fur and flesh. Beth shrieked with pain before tearing her paw away from Lucy and stumbling back, tripping over herself and landing on her tail. The surrounding crowd of inmates gasped with shock, and the laughter of the masses was no more. The bat picked herself up off of the bench before rising to her feet and stepping back nervously, her anger having faded. Lucy then messily wiped at her snout and muzzle with one of her wings, cleaning off all the prison mush as best she could.

She watched as Beth hauled herself to her feet, clutching at her shaking black paw and huffing angrily beneath her breath, temper rising by the second.

"You little skank! You bit me!" She shouted before groaning in pain. A small stream of blood dribbled from her thumb and onto the gray surface of the concrete floor below, staining it bright red. "You'll pay for that!" Beth roared.

Lucy only had enough time to gasp as Beth charged and tackled her to the floor before raising her good fist up and socking the bat directly in the cheek. Pain instantly flooded her nerves, and Lucy had to resist blacking out. She raised her gaze just in time for another punch to connect near her right eye, causing her vision to momentarily blur. Past the surprise and pain, Lucy knew that she couldn't stay like this forever - She had to get herself back on her feet again.

She then managed to free one of her legs, before kicking Beth in the gut. Lucy was pint-sized compared to the big tazzy, but it had just enough force to make her wince and back off a bit.

Using her wings, she then took to the air before landing another solid kick against the devil's jaw. That one had all of her weight behind it, and caused Beth to flail back from the force of her mid-air strike. As Beth struggled from the pain, Lucy flapped away from the scene, landing several feet away. She tried to run away even farther, but the mob pushed her back in Beth's direction before crowding around the two of them in a crude circle, forcing them together into an unmistakable fighting pit. The crowd began to take up a hearty chant. "Fight, fight, fight!"

Past the sea of orange-coated bodies, Lucy briefly spotted Ci-Ci as she danced nervously along the edge of the crowd, trying to break in, likely in an effort to help her. The mongoose was small and slippery, but even she couldn't squeeze past the crowd between them. Shifting her attention to the threat in front of her, Lucy took note of Beth's stocky frame as she raised up her arms. The thumb on her left paw was still bleeding profusely, but she showed no signs of being hampered by it.

Lucy returned the gesture; raising her own comparatively stick-like arms up to her face and balling her clawed fingers into as good of fist as she could. She admittedly knew very little about fighting, but there was little else that she could do. Beth snarled before swiftly stepping forward and throwing a solid punch directly towards Lucy's face. Being smaller and lighter, and therefore much quicker and more agile, Lucy was easily able to dodge it. She tried returning a punch of her own, but was caught by surprise as Beth's other fist sailed out from the side and jabbed her right in the temple, causing a throbbing pain to pulse against the side of her skull.

"Lucy!" She heard Ci-Ci's voice call out past the roar of the crowd, but even with her enhanced hearing abilities, she could barely make it out.

Beth grinned before planting another punch into Lucy's belly, causing her to fold over around the devil's fist before falling to her knees. She sputtered weakly, resisting the urge to vomit. Lucy then wretched horribly, and would have emptied her stomach were it not completely empty. The hoarse, dry heaves strained against her throat, and the bat began to feel more tears well up in the corners of her eyes. Her body was in pain, and she knew that it was still not over. The tasmanian devil standing before her leaned forward and then threw her foot out in a strong kick that connected directly to the bat's chest. Her ribs ached with agony as fell over onto the ground.

Her opponent was simply too strong. And as the devil leered over her with fists raised like clubs, for a moment, Lucy feared that she was going to die.

Then another sound pierced the air: A powerful, rumbling spur-like metal falling against rock. Lucy's weary eyes looked up to see a small army of prison guards descending upon their location. One of them had a gun filled with rubber bullets, and judging from the flaky impression on the nearby concrete wall, must have fired a few of them as a warning.

"EVERYONE GET DOWN, NOW!" One of the guards yelled. "BACK AWAY!"

All of the prisoners quickly dispersed, with some running away and hiding beneath tables while others dropped to the ground entirely as armored guards of hares and ferrets pummeled the crowd into submission. Past the chaos, Lucy locked eyes with Beth, who snarled at her with hate before lowering herself to the ground.

Despite being new to prison life, Lucy knew better than to disobey the orders of heavily armored guardsmammals. She tucked her palms behind her head before laying down on the ground along with the other inmates. She let out a quiet sigh of relief. The guards were finally here! It certainly took them long enough. At least now they'd be able to protect her from Beth.

"Inmates! On the wall, now!" One of the guards shouted.

The inmates rose to their feet before huddling against the walls in a straight line, paws behind their backs, faces forward and emotionless, as though this were just another ordinary occurrence. Lucy shakily pulled herself up before following suit and joining the other prisoners in the line. She wheezed, trying to ignore the pain in her abdomen. The guards paced up and down the length of the group, sometimes stepping forward and patting down one of the inmates before moving along.

Finally, one of the guards - a lean beige hare - stepped forward and cleared his throat out. "Who started that fight?" He demanded to know.

"It was the new meat!" Beth piped out from her side of the lineup. "The bat bitch!"

The bat bitch felt her heart skip a beat. "No! I didn't do anything! I-I was just-" She tried to explain, but was cut off when Beth shouted out once more.

"That little leech bit me! See?" she accused, lifting up her paw and allowing the guards to get a good look at it. They grumbled amongst themselves.

"Beth was shoving my face into my food!" Lucy spat back, pointing to the grease still dripping down from one of her ears. "It was self-defense!"

The head guard looked back and forth between bat and devil skeptically before finally gesturing to the both of them at once.

"You two, come with me. The rest of you, back to your cells! Lunch is over!" He yelled.

While the other inmates shuffled off disappointedly, Beth and Lucy stepped forward. The guards cuffed them both, and Lucy swallowed nervously, wondering what sort of punishment they might inflict upon her. Ignoring the devil's withering glare of anger, Lucy was ordered to march down the hall alongside the other guards, no doubt towards whatever harsh lecture awaited her for breaking the rules of the prison. The bat's eyes were still somewhat red from her earlier tears, and the pain in her chest leftover from Beth's strikes began to return, but past it all, Lucy kept her cool, focusing on her other senses in an effort to ignore the pain.

It didn't take long for her to notice the blood dripping down her lips and pooling against her teeth. She realized it was the remnants of Beth's blood, from when she had bitten her on the thumb. Lucy dabbed it with the tip of her thin tongue. It tasted... Good. Really good. She lapped it up, before swallowing it all down in a single gulp. She'd never tasted anything quite like it before. In the past, she'd only been able to taste blood during special occasions with her fellow vampire bat family, and even then, the city itself provided it through donations gathered from hospitals. Beth's blood tasted fresh, coppery, and weirdly sweet, like a metallic wine.

Something about it was indescribably thrilling. As the aftertaste slithered between her tastebuds, Lucy felt a slight smile grow upon her lips, exposing her bloodstained fangs. Despite all the pain and sorrow of these past few weeks, the bat allowed herself this single smile shaped from the taste of her enemy's blood. _Huh. May have been a bitchy battleax, but she has good taste._

* * *

_Solitary Confinement_

_12: 48 PM_

Lucy was unceremoniously tossed into a very tiny solitary cell. Very tiny, as in very tiny even for a rodent. It was five inches by five inches, little more than a stone bird cage. There was a three-inch bed, and a one-inch toilet. That was about it.

She was actually glad for the time away, and she'd never particularly minded being crammed into a tiny room. Heck, she hung out in her tiny ass attic all the time. Her only real regret was not having anything to paint with.

And just as she thought that, the eyeslot on the steel door opened and then slammed shut, and something bopped her on the back of the head.

Irritated, Lucy turned around. There was a paper airplane on the ground. _Great. Not only am I in prison, the guards are gonna act like grade-schoolers. _

She picked up the paper and unfolded it. To her surprise, there was writing on it that wasn't a crude picture of the warden. It had a few simple words, which still did not fail to creep Lucy the fuck out.

_You have my interest. I'll be watching. —LB_

* * *

_**I hope all of you enjoyed this. I typically try to post one chapter a month, but this month I actually had to do two, since I also wrote the Halloween chapter of Born to Be Drabbles. November will bring an Update for The Hero Club, as well as another chapter of the remastered SotH, and December will bring another chapter of this. If you want weekly updates on how my stories are going, as well as any chapter delays, pm me asking for a link to my Fimfiction account. I do my best to post update blogs there every sunday. Yes I know it's not a site for everyone, but well, I don't like Tumblr or Twitter, and I'm too lazy to remember more login info.**_

_**CiCi was created by and belongs to Upplet. The fight scene with Beth was written by Upplet, and edited by myself and Berserker88. **_

_**That's all for now, folks. I hope you have a happy Halloween!**_


	3. The Sangshank Redemption

**Chapter 3: The Sangshank Redemption**

_Sahara Square_

_Southeast Zootopia Small Mammal Penitentiary - Solitary Confinement_

_No Clue_

Lucy Sang was starting to think that her ancient ancestors were complete idiots with the whole "hiding in a dark cave" lifestyle. The concept lost a lot of its appeal around the point when she realized that _there was absolutely nothing to do._ At least back in her attic, she had free food and her art to keep her occupied. Here in the cramped confines of solitary, she was pretty much limited to three things: sleep, shit, or glare angrily at the bars as if hoping to melt them through sheer spite.

The third option got old pretty fast, number two was, well, number two, and that left her curling up in her appallingly-tiny bed, trying desperately to sleep.

It didn't come easy, and not just because of the complete lack of comfort. She still had the mysterious note from "LB" curled under her wing and she still had no idea what to make of it. Unfortunately, there was little else to occupy her mind right now and so it began to wander.

_What could it even stand for? Little Benny?_

Lucy blinked as there was suddenly a small pig standing in her cell. His name was apparently Benny, so said her subconscious.

_Uh... Large Benny?_

The pig immediately grew several sizes in an instant... yet was somehow still standing in her cell.

_Pigs are dumb anyway. How about... Limp Bovine?_

The pig promptly turned into a very thin and sickly-looking bull.

_Oooh, this is fun! Let's try... Lying Bitch!_

The bull turned into a wolf. A female wolf who leaned down towards her and said, "You are not going crazy right now."

_Oh guano, I'm hallucinating, aren't I?_

The wolf immediately disappeared.

"Aw, come on, I was enjoying that!" Lucy moaned, falling back onto her pillow.

She huffed. How long had she even been in here? It felt like hours since she had been brought in. It had to be nighttime by now. Right?

The sound of the door unlocking made Lucy bolt upright. Several burly rats in guard uniforms stood in the doorway. All of them were armed with pistols. "You're coming with us," one informed simply.

"Uhhhh..." Lucy wanted to come up with a smart retort, like one of those heroes who got falsely sent to prison on TV. But instead, she just said, "Okay."

What else could she do? They were armed, she wasn't. It was simple logic. Lucy stepped out of the cell, almost immediately being jabbed in the back as if they thought she needed _convincing _to leave this hellhole. If she was lucky, she'd be heading back to her original cell with Ci-Ci, and could at least have a full-sized bed again.

She internally shuddered as she realized just how far her standards had fallen already.

But it soon became apparent that she was _not_ being taken back to her cell. The guards took her right past the cell blocks, jabbing her again when she expressed confusion, and led her further down the hall towards a much larger room, absolutely enormous by her newly-lowered standards. But really, it was just the communal showers.

Lucy was miffed. _You aren't exactly a rose garden either, guys._

That's when it hit her. The showers were already running, and the room was full of steam.

The blood drained from Lucy's face. She'd seen enough movies to know what was going on. The steam would ensure that the cameras couldn't see into the room, so whoever had taken her from her cell could do whatever they pleased. _And now I'm going to get murdered. This is the worst ambiguous time of day ever!_

* * *

_Shower Room_

_Still Ambiguous _

She almost had to echolocate to see who was waiting for her in the steam. It was an old rabbit lady. Really old, with knobby knuckles and fur fully grayed from head to toe. The wrinkles on her face were visible through both her fur and the steam. She sat on a stool, leaning her chin on folded knuckles and gazing at Lucy with an unreadable expression.

"Hey, do you guys mind telling me who this...?" Lucy looked back over her shoulder to see that the guards were already gone. That was another red flag. This rabbit was in a prisoner's uniform, just like her, but anyone who could exude that amount of influence over the prison staff, if indeed they were the real staff at all, was not to be trifled with. She had better approach this one with caution or she might never make it back to her cell at all.

"Uh... hi." The rabbit did not react. "Are you, uh..." She wracked her brain desperately for an answer. "Lanky... Bunny?"

The bunny laughed, but didn't smile. "So you're at least clever enough to guess. Good. I am La Bruja."

She didn't say it like it was supposed to mean something, or as if Lucy was supposed to recognize it. It just sounded like a simple introduction one might give on the first day of school. It creeped Lucy out, but at least she knew what the LB stood for now. That would've gotten really annoying if it was dragged out for much longer. "Okay... I'm Lucy?"

"Why do you phrase it as a question?"

"Uh... I don't know?"

La Bruja sighed, rubbing her temples. "You are not going to survive in prison without help."

"H-Hey," she protested weakly. "I've been doing okay so far. Got my uniform, made a new friend, even if she kinda smells, made it through lunch, survived my hallucinations..."

"You picked a fight with a tasmanian devil on your first day."

"And... won?"

"See, now _that_ time it made sense."

_Yeah, this sounds pathetic even to me._ "So... you want to help me then? Why?"

"Perhaps because you're young and inexperienced, and I feel a matronly urge. Perhaps you interest me, and I see a use in you that you don't see yourself yet." La Bruja shrugged. "I'm not inclined to tell you, since you have no other options. You have nothing to negotiate with. Would you like my help, or not?"

Her business savvy was blunt enough to make her father proud. "Well... I wasn't really planning on joining a gang..."

For whatever reason, that got the biggest laugh out of her yet, a throaty cackle that brought to mind images of her namesake.

Then it stopped abruptly. "It is a yes or no question, Lucy Sang."

A chill ran down her spine, pretty impressive for how hot it was in here. She knew her name. And if she knew her name, there was a very likely chance she knew everything about her. Even from behind prison walls.

It was fear that motivated her decision more than anything. She didn't know if she wanted to be La Bruja's "friend", but she damn sure didn't want to be her enemy. "Yes... I would like your help. Please."

"Good." She nodded curtly. "You may go. I'll meet up with you in the morning. The guard outside will take you back to your cell. Your cellmate has been worried for your health."

"How do you know what she-?"

"I believe I told you to go."

She went.

* * *

_Mess Hall_

_9: 18 AM_

At first, it didn't seem like much had changed.

The next morning saw Lucy and a very relieved Ci-Ci returning to the mess hall for breakfast. The usual slop was provided and consumed, the mongoose shoveling it down like it was her last meal. Lucy herself nibbled at it a bit too, having grown hungry enough to ignore her much higher standards. And there was no unwelcome visit from any angry tasmanian devils this time. Everything seemed normal, or at least, as normal as things got in prison.

Oh, except that the rabbit was here now.

It was almost insulting. La Bruja was in the same uniform as the rest of them, eating the same food as the rest of them, not at all the image of the intimidating figure who had somehow managed to get her pulled out of solitary and into a private meeting in the showers. If anything, her ability to act so normal now was even more unnerving.

Ci-Ci seemed to be clueless about... well, a lot of things, but particularly her. She just kept eating away, almost nonstop, not so much as glancing up from her meal. It couldn't possibly be that good, could it? In any case, Lucy hadn't told her anything. La Bruja didn't explicitly _say _to keep her mouth shut about their meeting, but she sort of got that vibe out of it. She wasn't an idiot, except for perhaps so readily agreeing to her terms without knowing that much herself.

Finally, La Bruja spoke. "So..."

"DON'T KILL US PLEASE!" Ci-Ci blurted. Lucy noticed several other prisoners getting quickened heartbeats as they tried to avoid giving sympathetic looks.

La Bruja raised a wrinkled eyebrow. The look she gave was more baleful than a hay farm.

Ci-Ci flinched. "I'm sorry for interrupting!"

She looked away from her, back to Lucy. "So, I assume you're staying quiet because you think I want you to keep your mouth shut unless spoken to. That is a good instinct."

"Um... thanks?" She was also keeping her mouth shut because she was apparently horrible at talking to this lady. _Come on, Lucy, she's just an old, hobbled rabbit. She's not that scary!_

But clearly she was, and judging by the reactions all around her, she was one of the only mammals in this room who hadn't been aware of that yet. Even Ci-Ci, having been doing her absolute best not to make eye contact up until now, was evidently smarter than her for at least _pretending_ to be ignorant. Whereas Lucy had willingly signed her soul away to the local prison bogeymam with little provocation. "What exactly is it that you're expecting from me?" Might as well just come out and say it.

"Lots of whining. Sheer, unadulterated horror at the things that happen in prisons, and generally being a pain in the neck."

Lucy almost rolled her eyes, before realizing that might get her killed. "I mean... what do you want me to do?"

La Bruja's face did not betray whether she was just messing with Lucy or not. "I want you to do whatever I tell you to do. Today, you're going to pick up a few important things for me. I signed you up for a few of the work programs around the prison. I'm going to give you a list of stuff I want, you're going to get it all. Sound fair?" Her tone made it clear that she really didn't care how it sounded.

"What kind of stuff?"

"Yes or no question."

"Er, y-yes."

"Good." La Bruja reached into her pocket and passed a folded list across the table to her. "Consider this a test. A paper test. Pass, and you will be given more important duties in the future. Fail, and..."

She didn't even finish the sentence before she abruptly got up from the table and walked away.

"Well, that wasn't foreboding at all."

"What did you do?" Ci-Ci whispered, so quietly that she was probably afraid La Bruja's rabbit ears might still pick her up. "You joined up with _her?"_

"She had a bunch of guards take me out of solitary and bring me to her!" Lucy defended in an equally hushed tone. "I didn't exactly have much choice in the matter. Who is she anyway?"

"I don't know."

"What? Then why are you so freaked out about her?"

_"No one _knows who she is really," she clarified. "All we know is that she got brought here a few months ago, and ever since then, things around here just seem to... go right for her. Whatever she wants, she gets. Whoever she wants to see, she sees them. And anyone who questions it, they just sort of... vanish. Poof. Now we don't question it anymore. Understand?"

_So... don't do exactly what I've been doing?_ "I understand. Now."

"What I don't get is why she's so interested in _you._ No offense, but you just got here and you haven't even done anything that bad." She squinted at her suspiciously. "You _were_ telling the truth when you said you were innocent of that murder, right?"

"Yes!" Lucy said quickly. "I'm innocent, I swear!" She realized she had said that a bit too loudly and then _did _swear.

Ci-Ci's cautious expression faded instantly. "Okay, good! But still, really weird that she's interested in you then."

"Sure is," Lucy said dryly. "Maybe that list will clear things up." She picked the list up from the table and unfolded it. "What's this? A guard uniform? A pickaxe? Oil? Bolt cutters? Could this be...?" Her eyes widened. _No way..._

"Oh cool, she's planning a prison break!" Not only was Ci-Ci back to being her usual, excitable self, she was also back to being loud.

"S-Shut up!" she hissed, looking around frantically. By some miracle, no one else seemed to have heard her. Lucy breathed a sigh of relief. That was close.

And if La Bruja really _was _planning a prison break, then she was suddenly far more motivated to work for her. Once she was free, being stuck in this place with her and the rest of the psychos was a reality she wouldn't have to worry about anymore.

Lucy looked at the first item on the list. _Alright... delinquent shoplifting skills, don't fail me now._

* * *

_Laundry Room_

_10: 00 AM_

Her first job for the day was in the laundry room. The best place she was going to get a guard uniform without stealing one off of an actual guard, which was unappealing for a number of reasons.

The space was relatively cramped, with a single row of washing machines lined up against one wall and dryers on the other. There was only one way in and one way out, which was naturally being guarded. The prisoners were each working one machine and taking clothes from a basket next to them. There was more than a fair share of guard uniforms inside. The problem was getting one out of here with the actual guards watching their every move.

Lucy was quickly getting sick of the constant feeling of being watched around here. _It's just laundry, guys! Are you afraid I'm going to mix your damn whites with your reds?! _The thought of the color red made her slightly thirsty, but she thought of the other, very undrinkable liquids in this room, and quickly shook it off.

That did give her an idea though.

Having a perfectly sizable uniform in her claws, Lucy went through the motions of adding detergent to the machine… and added just a little too much. As in, the entire bottle.

With the screams of panic the guards let out, one would think a terrifying beast had suddenly burst into the room and not just a very large explosion of bubbles. Chaos erupted as some of her fellow inmates chose to make a break for it, or settle old grudges with their prison rivals, or play around in the pretty bubbles. But Lucy had a different objective. Still holding on to the uniform, she closed her eyes against the stinging bubbles and opened her mouth just enough to echolocate her way around. Her sonar didn't pick up the bubbles, and so the many vague shapes moving around in the cloud suddenly became clear as night.

That led to another problem. She had the uniform, the guards were distracted, and she could maneuver around freely, but that didn't change the fact that the exit was being guarded, even more heavily-guarded now, in fact.

For that matter, where exactly was she even going to bring this uniform once she got it out of here?

For _that _matter, why just steal a single uniform anyway, without even specifying the size?

_I… I didn't think this through very well, did I?_

As if sensing her conundrum, another shape emerged from the bubbles and approached her. Even without echolocation, those two big ears were hard to mistake. She was fairly certain the rabbit hadn't been working this job.

Before Lucy could even get a word out, La Bruja snatched the uniform out of her claws and looked it over briefly. "Adequate. Next."

She casually slipped back into the bubbles and disappeared, even from sonar.

And Lucy still had to clean all of those bubbles up afterwards.

* * *

_The Road to Hell_

_11: 00 AM_

Once that lemon-scented nightmare was over, Lucy and several of the other prisoners were chained together at the ankle and escorted out to the road just outside the prison. Apparently, there were several leaks in the piping, and the road had to be torn up to fix them. The brackish brown water that sprayed up like geysers did make some nice rainbows though.

Lucy swallowed nervously. In this place, La Bruja wanted her to somehow get a pickaxe. _How am I supposed to get something out of here that's like ten times my size?!_

That was made clear when she was given a tiny pickaxe, sized for a rodent. It was about two inches long. _Huh. Well, I guess she technically didn't say what _size _pickaxe I was supposed to get. Loopholes rule. _

It was actually fairly easy to figure out a way to get the tiny pickaxe into a place where she could hide it. The local government had been extremely lazy fixing the roads, and thus there were potholes everywhere. So she came up with a plan.

"Ow!"

It was a painful sort of plan, one that involved her repeatedly fake tripping over anything she could find and "accidentally" dropping the pickaxe into the nearest hole. Then she would go in to retrieve it, to the annoyance of her chainmates, and move on to another hole as they moved gradually closer to the prison, where she would repeat the process until she could finally claim the damn thing just broke.

On roughly the sixth hole of her homebrew version of Leapfrog, instead of a loud clunk, there was a dull thud. La Bruja emerged from the hole, holding the tiny pickaxe. "Good enough. Next." Before slipping down into what was apparently a very deep tunnel.

Lucy had to stand still for a moment, her eye twitching as her mind tried to comprehend what she'd just seen. And what, naturally, no one else had. She gave up quickly. "Guard! I dropped my pickaxe down a deep hole!"

The guard rolled his eyes and climbed down into the hole to look for it.

She wasn't sure if he ever came back out.

* * *

_Kitchen_

_12: 00 PM _

Item #3 was oil. That was literally all it said.

Thankfully, she was next sent to work in the kitchen, where it would be pretty plentiful. Given how vague her directions had been thus far, Lucy was almost tempted to just grab a teaspoon of the stuff and see how La Bruja reacted, but her self-preservation instinct was a bit too strong for that kind of blatant smartassery.

In the midst of boiling a pot of miscellaneous gruel, and in an actual apron and furnet on her head at that, Lucy ducked under the stove and opened the cabinet.

A very large plastic container of oil was sitting right there in plain sight, but even if La Bruja decided to pop out of the oven or something, she wasn't even going to _attempt_ to smuggle that monstrosity out.

What caught her eye instead was a glass bottle of the stuff being used by another inmate, a scraggly squirrel working on some fried bugs in a pan. He seemed to be paying it far more attention than it required. The food, not the oil. _Must have been a cook before he was arrested. Probably an interesting story there, buuuuut… I don't care right now._

She waited until the squirrel looked away, searching a row of spices for the perfect seasoning no doubt, then reached over and cranked his stovetop's burner to max.

It couldn't have been that way for more than a few seconds, but the squirrel's reaction was predictable. "My life's work! _It's ruined!"_

While he was sobbing to himself, Lucy swiped the bottle of oil he was using and opened her cabinet to stash it in.

"I'll take that." The bat jumped as La Bruja reached out from inside the cabinet and grabbed the bottle. "Next." She closed the door behind her. Lucy immediately opened it again, but the rabbit was gone along with the bottle.

The much larger oil container was still there though.

Lucy growled to herself and closed the door.

* * *

_Exercise Yard_

_1: 00 PM_

The last item on her list was a pair of bolt cutters. Unfortunately, this was also the point when they stopped working entirely and were let out into the prison yard for exercise. She doubted she'd find anything like that out here.

_Wait a minute... I'm outside! And not in a chain gang! These idiots didn't put anything on me to keep me from just flying out of here! So long, suckers!_

Lucy nearly took off right then, until she realized that they did indeed have something on her.

The cross-hairs of several guns being pointed from the watchtowers.

She lowered her wings. _Right... so how about those bolt cutters?_

She ignored the sight of the many inmates working out around the yard and instead focused her attention on the nearby tool shed. That seemed like a good place to start, but it was, like so many other places, locked up tight.

Great. She was actually going to need to be a little _social _for this one.

She flew over to the nearest tough guy, a scary-looking woolly rat covered in fur markings and probably some kind of disease, who was actively lifting a pair of dumbells back and forth. He would do. "Hey, you're pretty good with those, huh?"

He grumbled.

She looked down at the nearby weight rack. "Mind if I join in?"

He grumbled.

"Thanks!" Lucy grabbed one of the weights in her talons and made a show out of flexing her leg muscles as she practiced with it. "Oof! These things are tough! You must be pretty tough yourself to handle them!"

He grumbled.

"Tough enough to break through _anything _I bet!"

He grumbled.

_Oh, to hell with this._

She dropped the dumbbell on his foot.

He screamed.

Lucy flew back as the woolly rat snarled, glaring at her with murderous rage. And then he charged. Lucy dove out of the way quickly, letting the large rodent run straight past her.

And directly through the wall of the shed.

While the guards were distracted by the other tool out of there, Lucy snuck into the shed behind them, quickly securing a pair of bolt cutters from the shelf.

La Bruja hung down from the ceiling and once again snatched it out of her claws. "Hmph." She disappeared back into the... rafters? As she had been taught, Lucy no longer questioned it.

She walked out of the hole left in the wall, taking care to step over the groaning rat, only to walk clean into a row of guards holding cocked rifles. "Halt! On the ground now, inmate!"

Lucy put her hands up with a sigh. "Guano."

* * *

_Soon After_

Once again, Lucy found herself back in the cramped solitary cell. "Hello psychosis, my old friend..." she muttered under her breath. This place was going to drive her nuts. She'd been here for a day and had already been to solitary twice!

_It's actually a bit impressive, come to think of it. Gah! Don't start giving yourself prison cred! _

Fortunately for her, the second stay in solitary was much shorter than the first. Or maybe her internal clock was just all kinds of fucked now. Whatever the case, she found herself once again being dragged out by the guards, who still felt the need to shove her around even though they all knew where she was going.

Sure enough, she was back in the shower room minutes later, staring down La Bruja. She didn't even bother waiting for her to say something this time. There was only one thing she wanted to know now. "Did I pass?"

La Bruja was quiet for a moment, just to let Lucy stew. "Other than your somewhat... judicious interpretation of orders," She held up the tiny pickaxe, "You did very well. Clever tactics, though too reckless. We'll train that out of you."

Lucy wasn't sure whether to be pleased or not. She seemed to have passed, but last she checked, all she was trying to do was get the hell out of here, not join some secret prison cult or whatever this was. "Thanks? So… when do we bust out?"

"Hmm?"

"You know, all that stuff you just had me gather. It was clearly the kind of stuff you'd use for a prison break."

"Ah. Yes, indeed it was," she agreed.

"Then when is it?" Lucy pressed, starting to get annoyed.

"When is what?"

"The prison break!"

"Oh, there's no prison break yet."

Lucy froze, her eyes narrowing. "Excuse me?"

"While it is true that the items I had you gather could all be used for such a purpose, that does not necessarily mean they _will _be," La Bruja explained. "I did tell you this was merely a test, didn't I? What sort of test ends with you walking out of the academy before you've had the chance to be taught?" Before the bat knew it, La Bruja was suddenly right in her face, staring her down again. "Oh no, Lucy Sang, I'm afraid that this is but the beginning of your training. We will leave, but only once I am confident that you will be of use to me on the outside."

She wanted to be angry. Hell, she wanted to be _furious, _but that didn't keep her from instead being very, very frightened. "O-okay!" she squeaked, high enough to get an echolocation profile of La Bruja. She was even more surprised that none of the guards present in earshot seemed to care about what the rabbit had said.

La Bruja stared wordlessly into Lucy's eyes for a full minute, the entirety of which Lucy was too scared to actually say anything. Then she stepped back and turned away with a wave to the guards. "Take her back to her cell. I'll contact you when I have need of you again, Lucy Sang."

"H-Hey, wait!" she protested, suddenly finding her voice and it refusing to go quietly for once. "You can't just _induct _me into this bullshit without telling me anything! I still don't even know who you really _are!"_

La Bruja said nothing for a moment, nor did she turn around, apparently content to just let her get dragged off again. But she finally raised a paw, signalling the guards to stop. Her control over them was nothing short of unreal. "You really want to know, child?" she asked. "Alright, I think you're smart enough to keep a secret, or at least smart enough to know what's in your best interest. Have you ever heard of the Felidae Infernum?"

"...No?"

"Well then, I have good news for you." She turned around, giving Lucy a good look at the sinister smile on her face. _"You will soon enough." _

She lowered her paw. Lucy was left too stunned to stop the guards from taking her away again.

* * *

_**Happy New Year everyone! I hope none of you are currently falsely imprisoned for the murder of a sibling. If you are, well I hope you are either exonerated soon, or have a very gentle and loving cellmate. January will have an update of either SotH or The Hero Club. Or both. I haven't decided yet. Anyway, let me know what you think of the chapter. I hope you enjoy it.**_


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